Education Opportunities for Fellows

There are several education opportunities for GI/Nutrition Fellows.

Graduate Programs at Harvard & MIT

All trainees are expected to complete relevant course work in their field of interest. For trainees in the basic sciences, the entire catalogs of courses offered by the graduate programs at Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology are open to them. For each trainee, we will financially support one graduate level course per semester (with approval from the Director and the trainee's scientific mentor as to timing and course selection).

The Clinical Effectiveness Program at HSPH was established as a joint effort between HSPH and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. This 16-week program (8 weeks each summer over 2 years) provides basic and advanced education in epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical investigation, and it leads to Master of Science in Medicine. The first summer curriculum is a full-time 8-week commitment where the trainee has no clinical responsibilities. During the summer program, research protocols are designed with close supervision from the program directors, an advisor at HSPH, and a research mentor(s) from the home institution and the HMS-Fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition. If a graduate of this program wishes to obtain a Master of Public Health degree, successful completion of the program will provide approximately one quarter of the credits needed for an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health.

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is located directly on Harvard Medical School's campus, within two blocks of Boston Children's Hospital. The school offers Master of Public Health degree programs in Maternal Child Health, Epidemiology, Nutrition, Health Policy, Decision Analysis, and Clinical Investigation.

The Master of Public Health (MPH) degree is the most widely recognized professional credential for leadership in public health. The program emphasizes active, student-directed learning, problem solving, and the acquisition of skills essential to the practice of public health. The program is organized around seven career-oriented concentrations (see below). In addition to the common core curriculum, each concentration offers specialty electives and a selection of areas of interest, allowing students to explore in-depth one or more spheres of particular relevance to their career goals. The concentrations and areas of interest also enable students in the interdisciplinary MPH program to establish a second "home" in one of the school's academic departments, such as Health Policy and Management or Population and International Health.

The two-year Clinical Investigator Training Program is a cooperative effort involving HST, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Pfizer Inc., and Merck and Company, Inc. The goal of the program is to train physicians from a variety of clinical disciplines in the techniques and processes utilized in patient-oriented research. The program prepares graduates to follow a career path as clinical scientists who are skilled bedside clinicians recognizing problems at the bedside and possessing the technical skill and knowledge to solve these problems at the bench. CITP fellows have the option to pursue the degree of Master of Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School in conjunction with the Clinical Investigator Training Program.

The program allows trainees to develop direct experience in the performance of clinical investigation and at the same time, through didactic course work, provides them with a strong foundation in the computational and statistical sciences, biomedical ethics, principles of clinical pharmacology, in vitro and in vivo measurement techniques, and many aspects of the drug development process. Pfizer Inc, and Merck and Company, Inc. fund the program and also contribute faculty to the didactic curriculum.

Fellows develop a strong foundation in patient-oriented research. Upon completion of the program, they are able to apply contemporary research tools to clinically relevant areas of investigation, and are competitive for careers in patient-oriented research in academic medicine, industry, and regulatory affairs.

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